West Virginia must learn, adjust after disappointing defeat
Josh Eilert isn’t looking to make excuses, instead he’s tasked with figuring out a solution for his West Virginia basketball team.
After a disappointing and shocking 73-65 home loss to Monmouth, that’s going to need to come in short order. The Mountaineers struggled shooting just 31-percent from the floor, while falling even with the Hawks on the glass which included several critical missed opportunities down the stretch.
The offense failed to solve the 2-3 zone thrown at them and struggled to get into the sets at times. Monmouth gave plenty of attention to center Jesse Edwards which made scoring for the Mountaineers difficult and despite getting some good looks the shots didn’t fall.
“This is one that we’re going to try to dissect and figure out and move on and learn from this. It’s all you can do with a loss,” Eilert said.
West Virginia only turned the ball over 10 times, but they were costly resulting in 18 points. Playing with only eight scholarship players, the Mountaineers had concerns over depth and that could have played out during the game with the Hawks beating the home team in hustle plays to the ball.
But good teams find a way to win these games at home, regardless of the circumstances.
“We’re going to go back and figure out a solution. It’s going to eat at me, it’s going to eat at me all night and probably the next two or three until we can line up and play again but there’s a lot to be done between now and then,” Eilert said.
After the game, Eilert had a heart-to-heart discussion with his team on how to figure this out and move forward with another game against Jacksonville State around the corner Tuesday.
But all this can do is serve as a painful learning point for a team looking to find their footing.
“We have to figure out how to get on the same page. There’s going to be a lot of voices and there’s going to be a lot of critics and those people can voice their opinions and try to break us, but we’ve got to stay together and try to figure out how we can get better,” Eilert said.
It’s a long season but could get even longer if that doesn’t occur. It was understood there would be challenges for this team after all that unfolded in the off-season, but this isn’t quite what anybody expected. Still, that game is over and now it’s about the response.
The good news, if any, for West Virginia is that it won’t be an extended wait.
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